At the age of four, my parents and I left Tempe, Arizona, and ventured into the heart of Europe, to live in the capital city of the Czech Republic, Prague. My family traveled there as missionaries to work with the local church to develop student ministries, just a year after the the country split from Czechoslovakia in the Velvet Revolution. Growing up overseas gave me a cultural experience like nothing else and a much wider perspective of the world. Europe branded me with a passion for travel and culture that has followed me to this day.
Since my family and I have moved back to Tempe, in the summer of 2007. I’ve had a chance to intern for several of the most innovative and exciting design and development agencies in the metro Phoenix area, including Perk, Integrum and Keane Creative. Working for all of these awesome agencies has given me a chance to be involved in multiple exciting projects and gain the practical workplace knowledge not taught in high school, as well as aiding in funding my passion for photography.
I first became interested in web development in 6th grade, where our class assignment was to create our own personal web page. Although, I would cringe looking back at what I created then, the experience left me with a longing for more. To discover how everything worked, to break things and put them back together again. This passion has grown since then to all things from laptops to webpages, but it always leaves me with a desire to learn more.
Currently, after graduating from McClintock High School, I am pursuing my degree in Business Management at Mesa Community College while I Intern at Terralever. The work that I do at Terralever isn’t the typical intern work, such as sending faxes or refilling staplers but it’s getting to do what I love, web development! It gives me a chance to work on huge projects such as Red Bull Stratos or Flugtag, collaborations I would never have a chance to be a part of working freelance. It gives me a chance to utilize my abilities to the fullest extent. I believe that the experience and training I receive while I intern here at Terralever is as valuable as the teaching I could be studying at ASU. The web is growing explosively and the demand for current and up to date programming is increasing. It’s difficult for college course content to keep up with the growing pace of the web. That’s why I believe that interning at Terralever, not only gives me practical workspace knowledge but allows me to work with technologies that aren’t being taught.
One of the best parts about working at Terralever is having the ability to go to developers who are higher up than me and get their help and assistance in any project I am working on or struggling with. Not only does this teach me new ways to problem solve and tackle different issues, it prevents me from hitting walls or road blocks in which I am unable to solve a problem myself. I can get immediate help and feedback, which makes me significantly more productive. I get the opportunity to learn an exceptional amount of web development as well as teach others what I have learned, or what experience I have gained.
My passion is to travel back to the Czech Republic and to shoot photography. For now I want to continue pursuing my career in web development as well as continue rock climbing, playing the drums, shooting photography, drinking lots of tea and living for the gospel. Follow me on my blog at http://www.connormcsheffrey.com/
